British photographer Gered Mankowitz has an archive that spans 60 years, capturing an extraordinary array of stars that include Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Slade, Elton John and Kate Bush. Now, he hopes that vast treasure trove will be given a new lease of life after selling the lot to a company that plans to use digital technology to turn the images, among other things, into three-dimensional works of art.
Mankowitz is the latest high-profile photographer to sell the rights to his images, after a similar move by well-known musicians: Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen are among many who have sold their recording and songwriting rights for large amounts of money.
The photographer, who lives in Cornwall, feels that this is about creating a legacy of his work, as well as a multimillion-pound nest-egg in his 76th year. “My work will be taken to new levels that I could never have hoped for by myself,” he said this weekend. “I feel very excited.”
Unpublished shots are among tens of thousands of negatives, transparencies and digital scans he has transferred to Iconic Images, which is owned by the US giant Authentic Brands Group (ABG), owner of the rights to some of the world’s most prominent stars of music, screen and sports.
“Artificial intelligence now enables me to take six or seven rolls of negative film of Jimi Hendrix in the studio and turn that into a three-dimensional piece of immersive art or even a 10-minute video,” said Robin Morgan, CEO of Iconic Images.
“It can also recreate the scene, so that if Gered Mankowitz is in the studio photographing Jimi Hendrix, that can be recreated digitally in a particular room where people can walk in and be part of the shoot.”
The company already has the archive of photographer Terry O’Neill, and brand rights for the boxer Muhammad Ali, singer Elvis Presley and actor Marilyn Monroe, among others.
The worst nightmare of any artist is having their work associated with unfortunate products or causes, said Peter Fetterman, author of The Power of Photography. “Often the heirs of great photographers are completely unable to preserve the legacy or even organise the archive in a professional way. Major museums are not equipped to do it or have no interest in doing it. What is absolutely necessary is to protect the legacy of these great photographers”
But he was confident Iconic Images would not do the same. “They’re not going to trash the imagery by putting it on cheap sneakers. They make good judgments.”
Mankowitz said that music photography’s importance was not appreciated in the early years of his career. “In the 1960s, album covers tended to be made from photographs that already existed. The general attitude was that album covers were just packaging. That all changed in the late 1960s and 1970s.”
Photography sessions were then so relaxed that stars would be dropped off at his studio: “It would be just me and them. No security, no makeup, hair, stylist, and nobody from the record company. That sort of access and intimacy was absolutely key. As that got worn away, not only did it become less fun but there were also too many barriers, too many people getting in the way.”
Working with the Rolling Stones in 1965 led to the cover for Out of Our Heads. He crammed the band into a triangular space formed by hoardings on an outside building site.
“In those days, record covers weren’t really planned or conceptualised. But I’d learned that you have to compose a photograph that would lend itself to being used on a cover, with room for the name of the band, the album title and – very importantly – the logo of the record company. This particular composition just fitted the bill perfectly. I suggested to the guys that they squeezed into this narrow shape, which they did. There wasn’t any prima-donna attitude whatsoever.”
The Stones then asked him to photograph them on and off stage during their 1965 US tour, over six weeks, and he produced photographs for other albums, including Between the Buttons, which featured an enigmatic portrait: “It was after an all-night recording session, and I dragged them to Primrose Hill, because I loved the look that they had – that bedraggled, stoned, hung-over look,” he said. “I wanted to capture that and add to it with a homemade filter of glass and vaseline. It seemed appropriate to the times and the music.”
He remembers laughing with Hendrix through two sessions in 1967. “A rather modest chap, quietly spoken. He wasn’t remotely like the wild man of rock. He was enjoying the fact that he was being taken seriously as a solo musician. I think that comes through in the pictures.”
